Tag Archives: John

Faith Is The Key

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FAITH IS THE KEY 

“‘I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish — the very works that I am doing — testify that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has Himself testified concerning me. You have never heard His voice nor seen His form, nor does His word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one He sent. You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.'” John 5:36-40 (NIV).

Jesus and the religious leaders stood on opposite sides of an impenetrable wall. The heart of Jesus yearned for them to see the light and recognize that He was speaking the truth when He declared that the works He did and the witness of the Father pointed to only one thing — that He was the Son of God. Their desperate efforts to protect their power and influence over the people and their prejudice against Him because they hated His love for all people, blinded their eyes to His identity.

Again and again they demanded, ‘Who are you?’ but then rejected the evidence before their eyes because they stubbornly refused to believe His word. In the end it was not about their inability to understand. It was about their refusal to believe because they had another agenda. Had God or an angel personally come to explain the truth to them, they would still have refused to believe.

These men were professional students of the Word. They had memorised and studied the entire Old Testament from childhood and could flawlessly recite any part of it at will. It was in their heads but not in their hearts because their understanding and interpretation of the Word was fixed by their “yoke”, their way of interpreting and applying the Word. They followed the yoke of their rabbis, Shammai and Hillel, and the ancient rabbis who went before them, the men who determined how the Scriptures were to be understood.

Although the common people recognized the overriding authority of Jesus, they did not, and despised them for following and listening to Him. Not even the testimony of the highly revered prophet, John, could convince them that Jesus was the Messiah. They were in bed with the Romans and enjoyed their protection as long as they kept the people under their thumbs. They did not want anyone to rock their boat, especially this “softie” who had the common people eating out of His hand.

Their study of the Scriptures was purely academic, to reinforce their power over the people, not because they were looking for the truth about the Messiah. It was there before their eyes and available to anyone who had the will to believe, but for these men, the truth was safely hidden until they unlocked it with the key of faith.

It was out of these altercations with the religious leaders that some of the richest revelation of Jesus and His relationship with the Father came. His opponents might not have chosen to believe His word, but for those who do, we have the assurance and the witness that Jesus was no fake but truly the Son of God for, as Nicodemus testified, no one can do these things unless God is with him.

How does Jesus’ testimony sit with us? It actually has more to do with choice than with fact. Like the Pharisees we can choose to reject His word, or we can choose to believe and then have the witness in our spirits that what He said and what He promised is true. The world says, “Seeing is believing,” but that is the way of the skeptic. The Bible says, “Believing is seeing,” and that is the way of Father.

Faith must take the first step, based on the evidence, and the confirmation will follow. Faith puts into action what we know to be true, and God responds by fulfilling His word. We all fall into one of two categories, those who choose to believe or those who choose not to believe and the outcome depends on our choice.

Lion Or Lamb?

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LION OR LAMB? 

“The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God!’

“When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, ‘What do you want?’ They said, ‘Rabbi (which means “Teacher”), ‘where are you staying?’ ‘Come,’ He replied, ‘and you will see.’ So they went and saw where He was staying, and they spent that day with Him. It was about four in the afternoon.” John 1:35-39 (NIV).

Jesus rated John the Baptist the greatest of all the prophets. Why? He was not like Isaiah, for instance, who was a member of the royal family and whose long ministry lasted through the reigns of four kings. Isaiah was the prince of prophets in the Old Testament era. He had insights into the nature and ministry of the Messiah like no other prophet. After all, didn’t he write the most profound and sublime chapter in the Old Testament — Isaiah 53? But John was greater.

Why was John such a great man? His ministry lasted no more than six months before he was incarcerated and then beheaded. I believe his greatness lay in the way he fulfilled his assignment. What was his assignment? He was to prepare the way for and introduce the Messiah to Israel. It was not so much what he did but the way he did it that marked him out as a truly great man.

In response to the constant squabbling of His disciples over who would be the greatest, Jesus taught them what true greatness was all about. They thought that greatness was about being the most important and the most visible person in the pecking order. James and John even asked for positions at His elbows in His kingdom! Imagine that!

Jesus was quick to point out that it was they, not He, who determined their greatness. If they were were prepared to stoop down to the level of the lowliest in society, a little child, and lift him up, they would be truly great. Humility and the behaviour it produces, is the way to greatness.

How did John the Baptist measure up to Jesus’ criterion?

When the Pharisees interrogated him, he was quick to point out that he was no more than a voice. He could have claimed to be Elijah come back from the dead, a great prophet who had ministered during a time of apostasy in Israel and who had done amazing miracles – stopping the rain, bringing on the rain and even raising a dead child on one occasion. Jesus identified John as the fulfilment of God’s promise to send Elijah ahead of the Messiah but John made no such claim for himself.

John had the heart of a servant. His fiery preaching was not to humiliate but to call people back to God. When they responded, he spent time encouraging and teaching them about God’s kingdom.

He never lost an opportunity to point people to Jesus as the Lamb of God. Whenever he saw Jesus, he declared, ‘There is God’s Lamb!’ John, unlike Jesus’ own diisciples, had grasped the real mission of the Messiah.

The disciples were anticipating a stand-off with the Romans, their humiliating defeat and an era of glorious freedom for Israel under their new ruler, Jesus. The miracles He did confirmed their notion that He would restore Israel to her former glory under their great king, David, when everyone lived in safety and in plenty under his merciful and benevolent rule.

John, on the other hand, kept insisting that Jesus was God’s Lamb, not God’s Lion, at least not yet.  He was not in any way resentful when some of his disciples left him to follow Jesus. That was his purpose, to point people to Jesus and to introduce Him to the world as God’s sacrifice for sin.

John was faithful to his calling. He had no other purpose in life but to ensure that everyone he encountered knew who Jesus was. He was consumed with the passion to prepare the way so that, when Jesus arrived on the scene, people would recognise and follow Him.

This story speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

What’s Your Take?

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WHAT’S YOUR TAKE? 

“Now the Pharisees who had been sent questioned him. ’Why then do you baptise if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah nor the Prophet?’ ‘I baptise with water,’ John replied, ‘but among you stands one you do not know.

“‘He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’ This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan where John was baptising.” John 1:24-28 (NIV).

Did John, the apostle, ever have an opportunity to chat to John the Baptist? This conversation between John the Baptist and the Pharisees who were sent to interrogate him does not appear in the other gospels. so how did the writer know about it? It was not curiosity or interest that prompted their questions. They wanted to know because they had to report back to the powers-that-be.

Why did John baptise? First of all we need to dissociate baptism from Christianity as an exclusive rite. Baptism was a common practice in Judaism. They practised mikvah, ritual washing, for many different reasons. Before a groom-to-be formally proposed to his bride-to-be, he instructed her to wash (mikvah) which indicated his intention and ritually prepared her for his proposal.

A young priest was initiated into the priesthood in the footsteps of his father by being acknowledged by his father (“This is my son”) and by being baptised into his office.

Why was John baptising? He was initiating people into the new era of Messiah, preparing the way by calling people to repentance and identity with Messiah and what He stood for through baptism. They were “washing away” the old life and taking on a new role, just as a bride-to-be was washing away her single life and taking on the role of the betrothed and soon-to-be wife. Through baptism she was separating herself from all other men to the one man who had chosen her.

Unfortunately, those who “baptise” infants have placed a different meaning on the ritual and have missed the real significance of both John’s and Jesus’ baptism. Baptism is not a new kind of circumcision. God has given us His Spirit as the sign of the New Covenant — the counterpart of circumcision, if you like. “When you believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.” Ephesians 1:13b (NIV).

Just as circumcision was a sign of belonging to Israel and the guarantee of participation in God’s covenant, so also the Holy Spirit is the sign and guarantee that we belong to God, that we are His children and have the right to share in the blessings of the New Covenant.

“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” Romans 8:13-16 (NIV).

Baptism is also a sign of separation. A young woman separated herself from other men. A priest was separated to his priestly office. A believer is separated from his old life by a ritual dying, to his new life in Christ. Jesus was separated to His Messianic office and finally separated through His baptism of suffering and death to His eternal high priestly office for us.

Baptising babies to include them in the covenant people of God cannot do that because the Holy Spirit takes up residence in those who believe, not those who are sprinkled with water. Paul even made it clear that the children of Abraham are not those who are natural descendants of the patriarch but spiritual descendants who have become part of spiritual Israel because of the their faith.

“Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham, ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” Galatians 3:7-9 (NIV).

Why was John baptising? There was one coming, right on his heels, to whom he was pointing. He was alerting the Pharisees and religious leaders as well as all who would heed his message, that He was here to usher in the new era of God’s rule in the hearts of His people. If they responded by trusting Him, they would have the privilege of becoming a part of an entirely new way of doing life, God’s way energised by God’s Spirit.

Are you in or out?

 

 

Words To Rattle Your Cage Or Give You Hope

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WORDS TO RATTLE YOU CAGE OR GIVE YOU HOP 

“Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess but confessed freely, ‘I am not the Messiah.’

“They asked him, ‘Then who are you? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ Finally they said, ‘Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, ‘I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.'” John 1:18-23 (NIV).

John caused a real stir! People flocked from all over to listen to the fiery preacher who emerged out of nowhere. The religious leaders were getting worried. Their comfortable lives were being shaken up and they didn’t like it — especially because of what he had to say about them!

They sent their representatives to interrogate John. ‘Who are you?’ There were two things on their minds. Elijah or ‘the prophet’. Why Elijah? They knew what the prophet Malachi had said about Elijah — not necessarily Elijah come back from the dead but another prophet in the disposition and ministry of Elijah.

“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents, or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” Malachi 4:5, 6 (NIV).

Malachi, like all the other prophets, was calling God’s people to return to Him. Judgment day was coming and only those who turned back to the Lord and showed their sincerity by doing whatever they could to restore the family unity would escape the “flames” of the refiner’s fire.

A symptom of the depth to which God’s people have fallen is evident in the disintegration of the family unit. Even so-called believers are abandoning marriage through divorce, or “shacking up” so that they can walk away if it doesn’t work. There is very little commitment and children are left fatherless, without security and without identity. God said, ‘It’s got to stop! Get the family back on track. That’s the first step towards restoration.’

Who was “the prophet”? Moses reminded the people, “‘For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire any more, or we will die.’ The Lord said to me, ‘What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in His mouth. He will tell them everything I command Him.'” Deuteronomy 18:18 (NIV).

The people were waiting for this special prophet to come. It is quite natural that they thought that John was he. But John denied it.

Then how did John view himself? The apostle John, looking back, saw John the Baptist as a man who understood who he was and what his role was in this crucial time in Israel’s history. He made no extravagant claims for himself, and yet his very words set him apart as a prophet with a unique ministry. He was a voice proclaiming the beginning of a new era for which God’s people had waited for four long centuries after the last prophet.

‘I am the one who is telling you that the Messiah is here.’ What an astonishing declaration! After all this long time, God was actually doing what He said He would do. He would send His representative, the Messiah to put everything right that had gone wrong since the beginning of their existence as a nation. They could hardly believe it.

What do you suppose the priest and Levite contingent told the Jewish leaders when they got back to Jerusalem? ‘This man says he is the prophet God promised He would send as the forerunner of the Messiah,’ or something like that? Possibly! Did the Jewish leaders believe them? Not likely.

All the evidence, in their attitude to and treatment of Jesus suggests that they rejected John’s response and were ready with their campaign to deal with any challenge to their comfortable position as spiritual leaders of the people. When Jesus came along, they were ready to use their power and influence to maintain their authority, whatever the cost.

Do John’s words, ‘I am the voice,’ rattle your cage or give you hope?

Check The Fruit

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CHECK THE FRUIT! 

“There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.” John 1:6-8 (NIV).

Don’t you love the way John puts John the Baptist into the correct perspective? If you have travelled with me through Luke’s gospel, you will have seen how Jesus struggled to teach His disciples to interpret what was going on from the perspective of the kingdom of God. But at that time they just didn’t get it.

He promised them that things would be different after Pentecost — and they were! Once they had the Holy Spirit in them, they saw things from God’s point of view just like Jesus did. Although he was a prophet, John the Baptist’s ministry was unique and special. Just in case anyone mistakenly thought that he was the Messiah, John assures his readers that he was only a witness but a powerful one.

How did John the Baptist bear witness to the light? His preaching on repentance had a twofold purpose — to call God’s people back to a life of generosity and service and to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah who would immerse them in the Holy Spirit.

The religious leaders had led the people away from what God wanted into what they thought God wanted, religious people who meticulously kept the minutest details of the law at the expense of loving God by being kind and generous to all people. John’s preaching was fiery and explicit. He called his curious congregation who went to hear what he had to say, “A brood of vipers, a bunch of bastards — fatherless people!”

“Return,” he urged them. “There is someone coming who is far greater than I. My baptism in water is only a preparation for His baptism of fire.” What Jesus was about to do would be like the fire that consumes the chaff that is beaten off the wheat — He would expose and get rid of everything in His people that was incompatible with God – greed, selfishness, unkindness, pride and arrogance. He was not interested in religious rigmarole. He wanted real people who would love God and love their neighbour.

John the Baptist had no desire to promote himself. His only mission was to prepare the way by alerting the people to their need to get back to the simplicity of God’s way and to recognise the Messiah when He arrived because He would continue what John began.

“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognise Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent or a husband’s will but born of God.” John 1:9-13 (NIV).

There is a sad note in John’s story — in spite of what John the Baptist preached and testified to, neither the world at large nor God’s people recognised or acknowledged the Messiah when He came. His own people, who should have known Him because they had been taught His Word from their mother’s breast, refused to receive Him.

Since the day when they were taken into covenant relationship with God at Mount Sinai, they persisted in rebelling against God’s best way to live and going their own way with disastrous consequences; yet they never learned. And here they were, repeating history all over again.

Except for a few. In God’s story there are always those, few in number, yes, but true children of God who take what God says seriously, act on it and are welcomed into God’s family as dearly loved children. John hastens to add that this is not about natural birth. The Jews assumed that, because they were born Jews and had been circumcised — an external sign of their Jewishness, they were “in” and everybody else was “out”.

John made sure that he told them that it didn’t work like that. There had to be another “birth”, a supernatural one that brought them back into the family of God and reproduced the character of God in them.

How tragic that this erroneous thinking has crept into the church as well! Some branches of the church bring their babies into the family of God by “Christianising” them and “confirming” that ritual when they are of age and yet they have never been supernaturally “born” into God’s family by receiving Jesus as the Son of God and the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of sonship (Romans 8:14-16).

Jesus said, “Check the fruit. That’s the real test.”